Paul Knight will talk through ideas concerning two main working areas of his practice, photography and weaving. Knight makes works which extend out of the domestic sphere, using quotidian objects and situations to engage with broader and narrowing ideas of politics and the sublime. Knight will discuss the intimate potential of both these forms and their shared inversion between perceived flatness and spatial volume.

200 years ago Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein“ was published – perhaps the first modern myth. Ever since, the story of Victor F. and his monster has haunted our imagination and informed discussions about artificial life and the relationships of nature, technology, and society. A key moment in the story describes the monster hiding in a small dark room, where it listens to voices and sounds, and observes human behaviour. The monster is recording.

We all need to get the balance right, between action and reflection ... With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock, be it through contemplation, prayer or even keeping a diary. Many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection surprisingly rewarding …
(extract from The Queen’s Christmas message. Queen Elizabeth. 2013)

The course deals with the phenomenon of landscape and in particular with the forces behind the visual appearance of individual landscapes. What exactly is “landscape”? How do landscapes evolve? Why do certain cultural landscapes have certain characteristics - or in other words, why do they look like they look? What natural conditions are they based on and what economic, social and political circumstances and developments have shaped them?

In the more recent Viennese architectural history, the Loos-House at the Michaelerplatz is of particular interest. Its determined renunciation from Historicism and Secessionism is an early example for radical reduction - no decor, no embellishments.
The architect Adolf Loos even wrote a polemic pamphlet in 1908 with the programmatic title 'Ornament und Verbrechen'.

1. Salty, Smoky, Oily: Mold making for gourmets and beginners
The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials (silicone, plaster, alginate, acrylic resin, concrete etc) for building both lost and re-usable molds.

2. Sticky, Tricky, Dodgy: Advanced mold making for the motivated and sophisticated
The course takes place in a project-oriented way and with consideration of the interests of the participating students. The aim is to collectively find and realize casting solutions.

If this course was a Digital Arts Programme, #3 would be the Bachelor Part 2, #4 the Master 2.0, but since it is just a course within the curriculum of Ortsbezogene Kunst, the first hashtag covers the basics, the second explores the deeper layers of how to computer. kind of: Pflicht vs. Kür.

The focus lies on how problems are dealt with as well as on the development and the disadvantages of our modern society. Even though I've always had problems with expressing myself in German, writing nevertheless became the ideal means of communication for me. Only writing can express art narratively, controversially and with the appropriate authenticity.

Paulusplatz is about to be rebuild!
We are showing works of students who participated in the seminar "Das Lokale Wissen der Vielen" done by Margit Czenki and Christoph Schäfer at the departement of Site-Specific-Art.

Kunstverein Kevin Space promotes international and local developments of contemporary visual arts, brought into dialogue in solo and group exhibitions as well as performative and discursive formats. A focus on the commission of new artistic productions, developed on site and conceived specifically for the space, the close work with the artists invited, and an ongoing artist-in-residence program, tests out the potential of the art space as a dynamic space of encounter.

Examining fields such as architecture, gender, language, and sculpture in her artistic practice, Maruša Sagadin creates deceptive art objects and installations. Methods of reference and exaggeration are crossed with the usage of elements from architecture, pop, and subculture. In ingenious ways, she manages to engage the viewer in the innuendos of her work that often also takes shape as a performative intervention.

After the closing of the hotly debated documenta14 at both its sites, let’s dicuss an exhibition that has been a singularly risky enterprise: with a highly subtle curatorial stance renouncing signature works that has questioned documenta’s role as a showcase for contemporary art, an anthropologisation of artistic practice that has been critizied as re-colonisation, and a somewhat elusive, but highly politicized romanticism asking for a reinstitution of the body in conceptual and post-conceptual art while often hovering under individual radars of perception. What can we learn from the failures and successes of documenta14?

1. Salty, Smoky, Oily: Mold making for gourmets and beginners
The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials for building both lost and re-usable molds.

2. Sticky, Tricky, Dodgy: Advanced mold making for the motivated and sophisticated
The course takes place in a project-oriented way and with consideration of the interests of the participating students. For participating in the course, a basic knowledge of mold making and casting is advantageous.

The seminar discusses interventions, works, monuments, Percent-for-art programs and public exhibition situations in Vienna. Typologies of passage to central squares of monuments as well as their implicit requirements but also the concrete everyday life beyond protected art spaces will be analysed.

If this course was a Digital Arts Programme, #1 would be the Bachelor, #2 the Master, but since it is just a course within the curriculum of Ortsbezogene Kunst, the first hashtag covers the basics, the second explores the deeper layers of how to computer. Kind of: Pflicht vs. Kür.

Winter 2017/18

Courses

Studio Frankenstein

Ralo Mayer

Paulusplatz 5, Seminarraum 2.Stock
1030 Wien

Unsound ecologies - performative assemblages:

We will discuss current theories & positions on the relation of nature and technology, of ecologies beyond biological systems and post-humanism. Employing methods of performative research and auditive settings, the course will play and enact a sound studio environment to trigger, record and process Frankenstein’s monsters as radio pieces.

The Essence is also a screen for projections, an empty signifier that can be filled with ideas, dreams and desires. In reality it is also a space where situations that will eventually result in an exhibition, are constantly negotiated: the size of the exhibition space assigned to each department, the number of participants, the length of the text displayed, etc. etc. etc.

Addressing the issue of space, with individual and collective perception of space, with the experience and comprehension of space.

what, in fact, is space?
what is space for?
how can I dissolve space?
on one hand, how much materiality?
on the other hand, how little materiality does an immaterial space need?
where does space begin and end?

In the context of the cooperation with art@CMS and HEPHY (Institute of High Energy Physics), students of Art & Science and Site-Specific Art have explored the many facets that a large and multinational institution like CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) encompass.

Institutions are an ambiguous subject. Some despise them for abuse of power or dominance over free will and choice, others rely on them to save us from corporate harm or social demise. In the worlds of art I got to know, the relations between artists and institutions are just as varied. I’ve seen short affairs or serious engagements, refusal by principle and embrace of the moment. In the few hours we have together, let us talk about the relationships we want and don’t want, should and should not, can and cannot have with institutions, and how we can work with, for or around them to create the things we would like to live among.

Why hold a Biennial in Kyiv in times of a warfare (with Russia), economic crisis, social insecurity, amidst all the complicated geopolitical constellations Ukrainian citizens find themselves trapped in, a moment that seemingly has other priorities? How could or should, in the given context, art propose its own strategy deriving from its own logic? Shouldn’t art be, in this case, subjugated to the political struggle?

This course will be a journey through the material culture of outer space, from the surface of the Earth to the limits of the solar system. Space age artefacts include components of massive technological systems, such as satellites in Earth orbit and the terrestrial antennas which receive their signals, blast-corroded surfaces at launch pads and on the moon, and disposable cable ties which are manufactured and discarded in their millions.

Summer 2017

Courses

Unplugged Images

Katrin Hornek
Paulusplatz 5, Seminarraum 2.Stock
1030 Wien

An Observation on CERN.

Researchers at CERN use the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to reproduce the primordial soup that made up the universe a few billionth of a seconds after the Big Bang. After our excursion last December to the socio-technical machine CERN, where more than 100.000 researchers from over 100 nations are trying to find the building blocks of our universe, we have become pixel-recorders by ourselves.

The course deals with the phenomenon landscape and, most importantly, with the forces behind the visual appearance of individual landscapes. What exactly is “landscape”? How do landscapes evolve? What are the reasons why cultural landscapes exhibit certain characteristics – or in other words – why do they look like they look? Which are the natural conditions they are based on? Which economic, social and political circumstances and developments have shaped them?